It's hard for me to remember the first signs that my marriage was irretrievably fucked, and just about to go belly up. There was no actual defining moment when I realised that this was it, the point of no return had been reached, and there was no going back. The end sort of snuck up on me. All that I knew was that it was some time ago, and I was careful to not make a fuss about it, I had other plans.
It had begun so well for Chantal and I, we were in love. It wasn't just us that knew it, our friends told us that they could see how much we loved each other, even our parents commented on it. After a suitably long engagement the moment arrived when we were at last a unit, husband and wife as one. We had everything that we wanted, a nice new house in a nice new housing development with nice new neighbours. I had an almost new car and Jenny had my almost old car. We both had good jobs and had our mortgage covered comfortably. We had no plans to start a family straight away.
But that was now almost a thing of the past, I had reached the conclusion that a conscious un-coupling, at least for my part, was in order. I had also reached the conclusion that it was best that the almost ex should not be told of my decision. Like all good cowards I chose to sneak off like a thief in the night. Actually that isn't quite true, I was going to slip away during the day.
My planning complete, it was now time to put it into action. I had resigned from my job a week ago, not that she knew that, arranged for my salary and entitlements to be paid into a new account that I had set up. To confuse her, if she should try to find me, I sold my latest almost new car, took the money and paid cash for an almost old camper van from a private sale on the internet. I had money left over from this transaction, so didn't need to touch my bank account for some time.
Thus equipped, I sallied forth into the wild blue yonder. An hour into day one I briefly had second thoughts about my actions, briefly. I wondered if she would even miss the fact that I had not come home from work. Having dismissed these thoughts, I kept driving, taking my time and staying off the major highways, choosing instead to travel the B roads, the road less travelled.
One of the beauties of driving a camper van is that, due to its inherent instability, one tends to drive at a speed that allows one to enjoy the scenery. I was in no great hurry to reach my destination, wherever that was. The sun was shining, it was a warm day and all was well with my world, what more could I want?
I had just reached, the van panting from the effort, the crest of a particularly long hill on the Princes Highway, which is one in name only in this part of the world, when a blur blasted past me, a red sports car in a hurry. "What a fool." I thought to myself, "There are three possible consequences to his speeding, He could cop a fine for speeding, and at the speed at which he was travelling, he would have his expensive toy confiscated, or he could lose control and wrap himself around a large tree, or he could arrive at his destination a couple of minutes early.
Some little time later I had crossed the river (Murray) and pulled into a service station cum truck stop at Tailem Bend to refuel my camper and myself. I had the nozzle down the hole and was pumping diesel into the van when a voice behind me made me stop. "Nice van." I turned slowly, to be confronted by a woman. Not just any woman, a very pretty woman. "I noticed you back down the road as the idiot blasted past you."
"Were you in that, what is it, a Ferrari?"
"Yes."
"He must have more money than sense to be driving at that speed."
"Tell me about it, scared me shitless he did. Do you mind if I take a look inside?"
"No, help yourself."
She opened the side door and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.
I finished refuelling and walked inside to pay for the fuel and get myself some nibbles and a drink. As I walked out to the van I notice a man standing next to the Ferrari looking around. "You wouldn't have seen a woman get out of my car would you?" He asked as I walked by him.
I gave him a technically correct answer. "No, sorry." Well it was no lie, I didn't actually see her get out of the car, did I?
He stormed into the restaurant looking for her. I slid into the driver's seat. "You can come out now."
"I think I'll wait until you're down the road a bit."
"Suit yourself, I have nibbles here if you're interested." I heard her climb down the ladder from the over-cab bedroom, climb between the seats and slide into the passenger's seat.
On second sight she looked even better. "Now where are these goodies? I left breakfast on the side of the road back there a bit." I opened the lid of the centre console and pointed to the bag of jelly snakes. "I must say you've spared no expense on me."
"I wasn't thinking of you when I bought this stuff. How was I to know that you were going to do a runner on your mate?"
"You're forgiven." She said as she passed a snake over to me. "I didn't even know I was going to leave him, but you looked safe enough, so I made the most of the opportunity that presented itself."
"You won't hear me complaining."
"Don't get any ideas mate, I've had enough of testosterone fuelled men's ideas for one day. He thought that by driving at breakneck speed he would somehow get into my pants. I have news for him, slow and steady wins the race." I slowed down. "Not that slow, we need to be long gone before he comes looking for us."
I had chucked a left onto the Mallee Highway, it was hardly a highway, when I noticed a tree lined gravel road to the left. I turned off the bitumen and drove slowly for about a kilometre along the road, being careful not to raise too much dust in the process. I stopped at a place where we could not be seen by the casual speeding motorist looking for his lost woman. "Come." I unbuckled my seatbelt and clambered back into the camper. I took a kettle out, filled it and plugged it in. "Tea or coffee?"
"Coffee thanks."
"How do you take it?"
"White, with no sugar."
"Sweet enough, is that it?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out."
"I'll look forward to that." You will probably think that this banter is totally banal, and not befitting two mature adults. My excuse is that I have problems interacting with other people, particularly women, beautiful women, on first meeting them. This was no exception.
We sat in silence facing each other across the small table. "Let's get down to tin tacks. I'm Kate, and as you will have gathered I'm running away from a man, two men in fact. The first is my bastard of a husband, and the second you know about. He, I succumbed to in a moment of alcohol induced weakness last night, and accepted his invitation to go on a picnic today. Both of these decisions I am now regretting. But it is not all bad. I have met, and found myself throwing myself on the tender mercies of a total stranger. Normally I would do none of these things, except that is, the running away from the bastard. What's your story?"
"I'm Phil, and I too, am running away, as far as possible from my former loving wife. She, it appears, no longer loves me."
"It appears as if you're running away because it appears that she no longer loves you. Do you have proof of that?"
"To use legal jargon, the evidence is purely circumstantial. I strongly suspect it to be the case, but I have not actually caught her at it. The signs have been there for some time, the evening meetings, many out of work hours with the same bloke, that now go on much longer than before, the hidden pre-paid mobile phone that I found, with regular calls from the same few numbers, none of which are her business contacts or shared friends. I decided some weeks ago that I would fly the coop. I have planned it so that she will have some difficulty in finding me, that is of course, if she even bothers looking."
"I take it that there's no looking back for either of us."
"You've got it in one, it's the road ahead for us, and the rear vision mirrors no longer exist."
So it was that I found myself in the company of a woman. I tried not to dwell on the fact that she was the only woman, apart from the little wifey, that I had ever been alone in the company of, on a non-business level, for literally yonks. She was so very different from the aforementioned little wifey in that she spoke openly and honestly about her life up to now. I learnt from her that the disaster that she was walking away from was just that, a disaster.
"I realise now that I should never have married Sebastian. What I took to be his self-confidence turned out to be a massive ego. Everything was about him, I had virtually no say in our lives. Our first house was in a posh suburb full of Jones's that had to be kept up with. We could barely afford the mortgage, let alone the new flash car that we just had to have. I found myself working my arse off to help pay for his every whim. Just when we were getting on top of our finances, he had to buy a new improved house, so we were back behind the financial eight-ball yet again. The final straw came just last week when he arrived home and announced that he had traded his not very old luxury car on a new Jaguar XKR. And then, while I was doing the accounts to see where he managed to find the money for this latest purchase, I discovered that I had contributed substantially to it. Then I found that he had been fiddling with the accounts and been paying money into an offshore account through some law firm called Mossack Fonseca. I gather that I will not see any of that in a divorce settlement."
"So you had a hissy fit and walked out on him."
"No, I said nothing, just packed up a few personal items and checked into a hotel. That was where I met the boy racer. I can't seem to get away from boys with their big toys."
"I would hardly call this a big toy."
"I was about to say present company excepted. You don't seem to be the type that would go into huge debt just to satisfy his whim. This is hardly what I would call a luxury car."
"Actually this is very much a change of pace for me. My last, and previous several, cars have all had one thing in common, they are all luxury British or European cars with a couple of years on them. They have had any problems sorted under warranty, and their depreciation has gone from disastrous to stationary, so I didn't pay all that much for them."
"So why the change?"
"Part of my cunning plan to delay her finding me, should she wish to that is. I am planning on the dealer that I sold my car to not transferring the registration until it has been sold on. Unless a search is made of car yards it will not be found in a hurry."
"What is the rest of your plan?"
